


Remedial Star Trek

by DwarvenBeardSpores



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Depression, Episode 1.11 - Remedial Battle Magic, Gen, Snark, Star Trek - Freeform, Vulcan Culture, nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 07:12:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11375190
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DwarvenBeardSpores/pseuds/DwarvenBeardSpores
Summary: “But meanwhile we get to go full Spock with Battle Magic.” - Quentin, 1.11 Remedial Battle Magic.Quentin is wrong about Spock. Penny calls him out on it.





	Remedial Star Trek

**Author's Note:**

> Hello Magicians fandom! I am new here. I am also a Star Trek nerd who took issue with Quentin's Spock interpretation. I love him, but babe. The bottles are what Spock wants, not what Spock is. 
> 
> Anyway, master-of-the-vulcan-salute Penny was more than willing to address this.

“Dude,” Penny said. “We gotta talk.” 

Quentin rubbed his face with his hands. He still felt like absolute shit. Every bone in his body, every muscle in his face hurt. Alice was pissed at him, and he was pissed at Alice, and he was never going to be _good enough,_ and they were all going to die, and this was the last thing he needed. 

“What?” Quentin snapped. “Whatever it is, I don’t- I don’t know _,_ okay?” 

Penny rolled his eyes and sat down. Quentin had taken up most of the couch, and Penny was not into that whole physical contact thing, so he, thankfully, took the chair on Quentin’s left. 

“Calm down, it’s not about the Beast.” Penny leaned forward, and before Quentin could ask what it _was_ about, said “you can’t seriously think that Spock doesn’t have emotions.” 

“I- _what_?” Penny? Talking about Spock? Quentin was getting some definite Twilight Zone vibes. He must have done something wrong. He had mentioned Spock when they were bottling their emotions, sure, but he didn’t see what that had to do with anything. And now he was in a parallel universe where Penny was the nerd and he was the psychic asshole, and if that was true he should be able to read Penny’s mind, but-

“Hey. It’s me.” Penny’s voice cut right through Quentin’s paranoid thoughts. “Star Trek’s like, so mainstream it’s barely even a nerd thing anymore. And I can definitely still hear you.” Quentin swallowed and hastily strengthened his mental wards. His head throbbed more than it already had been. Why couldn’t warding come as naturally to him as it did to everyone else? No wonder Penny hated him so much. 

Then he realized what Penny had been saying. “Um, actually? Star Trek’s history is so much a part of nerd culture that you can’t- you can’t just separate the two. Yes, it’s gotten a lot more popular with, with the reboots, and Netflix, and it’s not so much an underground thing but neither is nerd culture itself, and-“

“Okay, look.” Penny sighed. “I do not have the energy to fight with you on two subjects, okay? I’ve got one thing to say, and I’m gonna say it. Spock. Has. Emotions.”

Quentin blinked. “He’s a Vulcan.”

“Yeah, and Vulcans. Have. Emotions.” Penny shook his head. “That’s such a rookie mistake.” 

“Excuse me?” Quentin bristled. “I am _not_ a rookie. I’ve watched every season of-“ 

“Yeah, and you must’ve fallen asleep through them all. Yeah, taking out our emotions and putting them in a bottle, that’s like Kohlinar, I’ll give you that. But Spock, or any Vulcan, on a day-to-day basis? They’re fucking pressure cookers of emotions.”

“Their whole deal is that they operate on logic. _Not_ emotion.” 

“That’s what they want you to think. Emotions are dirty, so they gotta be repressed. But the thing is, they’re still there. You watch Nimoy and you can see it. Spock is like… like if Eliot was drinking math instead of booze.” 

Quentin snorted. “I mean, sometimes. But whenever he’s emotional it’s because of something else. Like, like in The Naked Time, it was a virus, and This Side of Paradise was—“

“Wow.” Penny shook his head. He looked so disbelieving. “You do know those emotions had to come from somewhere, right? The virus didn’t make any of them up. Also, y’know why Spock couldn’t complete Kohlinar?”

“Because he was psychically connected to Kirk.”

“And he was _emotional_ about it. Trust me. If psychic links were the deal breaker, how the hell would that old lady vulcan be able to check his mind. Huh?” 

“I…” Quentin frowned. Penny’s arguments made sense, but… “Okay, so they’re all secretly emotional messes. How the _hell_ do they get the reputation of being emotionless?”

“They’re really good liars.”

“Vulcans can’t-“

“Vulcan’s lie all the time! Saying that Vulcans can’t lie is a fucking lie. Oh my God you’re dense.” 

Somehow it still always hurt when Penny did that. And Quentin wasn’t wrong, and he wasn’t _dense._ The words came out of his mouth to prove it. “No, see- two people can have different interpretations of the same thing. So like, when I was really into Star Trek, _really_ into it, I would sometimes pretend I was a Vulcan. Because everything hurt and it was easier to remember the times when I didn’t feel anything.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s called disassociation.” Penny stood up. He was just going to leave it at that. Quentin opened his mouth, ready to debate the finer points of disassociation, but Penny cut him off again. “Look, you’ve probably got the whole DVD collection in your room, right?” 

Quentin nodded. Penny must have been reading his mind again. 

“Watch a few episodes, pay some fucking attention. Then come back and see if you’re still ready to fight me on this.” He turned and stalked towards the door. Quentin just stared for like five steps. Then something occurred to him. 

“Penny. Wait.” 

Penny didn’t turn around. “What?” 

“Why do you care?” Quentin was relieved when Penny didn’t just ignore him. “I didn’t even know you liked Star Trek, and, and usually you can’t stand to be in the same room as me. So why is _this_ important enough to pick a fight?”

There was a moment of silence, then Penny laughed. “Because it’s hilarious that the biggest dork on the planet can be so fundamentally wrong _._ ”

“No,” Quentin said. “Half of the things that come out of my mouth are wrong.” 

“And I drag you for them every single time.” 

Quentin rubbed at his head. “Come on!” he snapped. “If you’re going to argue with me on the shittiest morning I’ve had in almost a month, at least tell me why!” He realized belatedly that his wards had fallen sometime in the conversation, and hastily built them back up. 

Quentin had no idea why Penny actually turned around. His arguments sounded weak, even to his own ears. And yet, with a mighty sigh, Penny turned to face him. “News flash. Not only do Vulcans have emotions, they’ve got this other thing called _telepathic abilities._ ” 

_Oh._ “The Vulcan mind meld.” 

“Amazing, so you did pick up something.”

“And- and you’re a psychic.” It all made sense. “So whenever Spock went into somebody’s head you could relate to it! Have you ever tried, like, actually melding with someone?”

“Jesus, no.” Penny grimaced. “But you’re satisfied now? Not gonna tear up the campus asking people why I care about the flagship of the geekdom?” 

“Yeah,” Quentin said. “I mean, no. I’m- I’m satisfied. But hey,” he realized that Penny leaving, as much of an asshole as he was, kind of hurt. It reminded him of how alone he really was. “Hey, I do have all three seasons of the original series if you ever wanted to-“

“Yeah, right.”

Penny made it all the way to the door before he turned around. “And just so you know? Not only would he be bad at it, but Spock would’ve hated the idea of using battle magic.” He yanked the door open and slammed it behind him before Quentin could even open his mouth to respond. 

He sank down further in his chair. Well fuck. Now he just felt worse, and he was alone again. And they weren’t going to do the bottles again until the evening. Maybe he’d take Penny’s advice for once. Watching Star Trek had to be better than anything else he could be doing. 

“He would’ve used battle magic in an instant if Kirk was in danger,” he muttered, and hauled himself back upstairs to his bedroom. Maybe he could find something to prove Penny wrong. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! I'd love to know what you thought. 
> 
> You can also find me, and my increasing investment in this fandom, on tumblr as dwarven-beard-spores.


End file.
